Take, for example, his portrait of the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards. It's all there: the smirk, the skull ring, the cigarette butt in his right hand. And, yeah, he's extending his left middle finger at the photographer, Natkin.

The picture is worth more than a thousand words. Natkin is happy to provide them.

It was 1987. He had accompanied friend and neighbor Don McLeese, then the Sun-Times' rock critic, to New York to photograph Richards, whom he had taken pictures of in concert but never met.

"I set up lights and a backdrop in a conference room and starting shooting," Natkin recalls. "I like people putting their hands in pictures. He once told me photographers were going to give him cancer; they always want him to smoke for the picture. I took the pictures, packed up and went home. I looked at the pictures but never saw the finger because it was at the bottom of the page. … It wasn't till a year later when someone at my house was looking at my files — people do that all the time — and asked, 'Why didn't you print the one of him giving you the finger?' I looked at him like he was crazy. And I checked, and there it was."

Before leaving the shoot, Natkin learned that Richards was planning a tour not with the Stones but with the New Barbarians. He sent Richards' manager a note, asking if they needed a tour photographer. He was hired. It led to working a Rolling Stones tour, the first of three, and a second Richards solo tour.

Natkin's photos and the stories that go with them will be on display this summer at the Elmhurst Historical Museum in "Shutter to Think: The Rock & Roll Lens of Paul Natkin." The free exhibit features photos by Natkin and text by Sun-Times writer Dave Hoekstra.

"There are traveling rock 'n' roll exhibits that show images, and that's it," says Lance Tawzer, curator of exhibits. "We want to tell the story of a Chicago guy who was right in the middle of this rock 'n' roll world."

Tawzer says his first choice for a summer show was an exhibit on Charlie Brown, from the Charles M. Schulz Museum. But the Museum of Science and Industry beat him to it last fall, and he needed something else. He thought of Natkin, whom he knew had been shooting concerts since the '70s, and called him. Natkin was receptive.

"It's a great opportunity," says the 61-year-old Natkin. "I always like to show my work, and to have, like, a career retrospective is pretty cool."

Over the past four decades the Chicago photographer has had a front-row seat for music history. He has photographed Bruce Springsteen, the Stones, The Who, Henry Rollins, Shania Twain, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown and countless other performers. His work has appeared on the cover of Newsweek, in Rolling Stone, Time, People, Playboy and Ebony, and he has shot numerous album covers.

Many of his images have become iconic: of Ozzy Osbourne lifting guitarist Randy Rhoads in a bear hug; of Stevie Ray Vaughan taken the day before he died in a plane crash; of a sporty but feeble-looking John Lee Hooker sitting in a trailer waiting to perform at Arlington Park.

And to think, Natkin could just as easily have been shooting Carlton Fisk, Michael Jordan or Walter Payton. His father worked as a photographer for the Bulls, and he took young Paul with him to work.

"I thought it was amazing," he says. "You'd drive to the stadium, park free, get a hot meal in the press box, then get the best seat in the house. There's not a lot of downside to that. That's how I learned photography. He got tired of it eventually, and I went on my own."

He soon expanded into other sports. One day, after shooting a tennis match at Northwestern University, he heard that a new recording artist, Bonnie Raitt, would be appearing on campus that night. He talked his way in at the back door and thus began his music photography career.

A turning point for Natkin came in 1984, when he was asked to shoot Prince's birthday party. He showed up in Minnesota to find he was the only photographer there. He took his pictures, then "struck gold," as Tawzer puts in, when Prince stopped appearing in public. If anyone wanted the latest shot of Prince, they had to come to Natkin.

From there, things took off: He shot Springsteen doing his first video, The Jacksons' "Victory Tour," the two Richards' tours and three with the Stones. His favorites?

"Springsteen is a favorite, even up to today. A lot of the metal bands in the '80s were fun to shoot. Gaudy clothes, big hair, eyeliner, and they jump around a lot. I don't care who I shoot as long as they put on a show. The most boring thing is a guy with an acoustic guitar behind a microphone. There's no emotion. I have to make that into something. It's not easy. But black and white Spandex outfits, jumping around, is like shooting fish in a barrel."

Springsteen, the Stones, hair bands and more will be on display in Elmhurst.

In addition, there will be a stage for band performances, as well as a large mock-up of a cover of Rolling Stone magazine, also featuring Richards, that guests can become part of for photo-taking purposes. There will also be other album covers, magazines and cameras.

But the focus is on the photographs.

"My whole life has been spent, hopefully, being in the right place at the right time," Natkin says. "I always quote Keith. He says he's not a songwriter. He just sticks his head in the right place at the right time and songs fly in. He has a tape recorder next to his bed; he'll wake up, hum into it, and next morning he has a song. I put myself in a position to have these situations fly out at me."